The present invention relates to xerographic printing apparatus, and more specifically to a transport device used in removing waste toner from such an apparatus.
The basic principles of electrostatographic printing with dry marking material (generally referred to as xerography) are well known: an electrostatic latent image is created on a charge-retentive surface, such as a photoreceptor or other charge receptor, and the latent image is developed by exposing it to a supply of toner particles, which are attracted as needed to appropriately-charged areas of the latent image. The toner particles are then transferred in imagewise fashion from the photoreceptor to a print sheet, the print sheet being subsequently heated to permanently fuse the toner particles thereto to form a durable image.
Following the transfer of the image from the photoreceptor to the print sheet, residual toner particles remaining on the photoreceptor are removed by any number of known means, such as a cleaning blade, brush, and/or vacuum. In a typical embodiment, the removed toner is accumulated in a hopper. Accumulated waste toner is directed, typically by an auger, into a waste container.
Elements described herein relate to aspects of a module which is readily removable and insertable in a xerographic printing apparatus, such as a xe2x80x9claserxe2x80x9d printer or copier. The module includes many of the well-known elements used in the xerographic process, such as a photoreceptor; a corotron for initial charging of the photoreceptor; a transfer and a detack corotron; a cleaning blade; and an auger-based device for removing waste toner that has been removed from the photoreceptor by the cleaning blade.